Dog-ear — or Donkey-ear if you’re German — or Pig-ear if you’re South African — is a bookmark that thinks like a magazine, or a magazine that can used as a bookmark. Either way, like the equally wonderful Matchbook Stories, it’s a object that proves the maxims “more than a mouthful goes to waste” and my favourite “a simple idea done well”.

Nine panels, each with a cherry picked short story, poem or illustration to stop you folding the page down. I eat with my elbows on the table. I drink cappuccinos after eleven. I have even poured white wine into a glass that previously held red. But the line is very firmly drawn at creasing the page corner over. Thank you Pete and Joe.

It’s free from stockists listed on the site, or being egalitarian a printable pdf is provided to make your own. The Tattered Page Liberation Front starts here.

For those wondering, Matchbook Stories is the creation of Kyle Petersen who publishes a super short story of not more than 300 characters inside a matchbook cover. I would be a very happy literary arsonist but it’s impossible to get a book unless you live Stateside. No mailbag fires and Fedex wont ship matches.

My story “Foundation” was short listed for Issue one, read it on the site.

If we’re being inclusive I ought to give a shout-out to Stack, a service that posts you a fresh independent magazine once a month. The wonderfulness doesn’t stop there, like a tangerine in a Christmas stocking they are prone to popping a present into the bottom of the envelope. Which is where Dog-ear raised its head. Stack will be solving my present list come December.

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Playing with memes from our imagined adolescent girl rituals, crashing together Susannah B’s schoolgirls, sleep-overs and Lizzie Borden. Lord of the flies in the Valley of the Dolls: come up your own glib pop psychology.

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I saw a still from the video float by my monitor recently and a little reverse image searching from Tineye led me to Josh Mond’s video for Mayday Parade’s “Kids in love”. It’s two years old but appears to be relatively unknown. Musically it’s American trash pop. But that’s not why I’m posting it, if you don’t like this genre I suggest putting on a favourite tune before hitting play. The visuals aren’t synced or relevant to the tune’s structure. The director it seems, took the songs title and used that as his starting point for the storyboard.

So why am I posting it? I make no bones about being a huge admirer of Ryan McGinley. Quite simply my favourite artist photographer. And it appears that he is admired by Josh Mond too. For the brief could have been written “…make me a video inspired by ‘I know where the summer goes’…”. You could argue it’s derivative but McGinley hasn’t made films, and Mond made Martha Marcy May Marlene (my favourite film poster of last year) so let’s just agree it’s a pretty fabulous ride whatever the inspiration.

For the record I play Big Deal’s cover of Alex Chilton’s 13 as an alternative soundtrack. Something about the clash in pace and ensuing loss of innocence adds a little pathos. But then I’m a soppy git.

There is something pleasantly surprising to find a mention of yourself in a publication that one actually reads. Juxtapoz is a printed art magazine that also curates an online space showcasing more outsider aspects, which now includes a selection from my Skintones series. Well worth following besides it just featuring me.

Alrincon is a site which knows what side of the art-or-porn debate it’s on. Clue: it’s not art. So when my work was mentioned I was a little hesitant but the review is surprising pleasant. To save you clicking through here is the salient part…

No all photographers look for hot and beautiful girls. Some go further and look for something more deep. Photographers who try to capture the soul, the spirit, the inner… tell a story. Julian Baker, for example…

… under a headline of “Julian Baker doesn’t take photos of models, he shoots people”. In fact it’s one of the more thoughtful things that’s been said about me in a blog, so thank you Alrincon.

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Although I am overfond of saying “Simplicity done well”, as a maxim it is hard to beat. There is a small genre of music videos where subtitles are overlain to add a extra dimension or narrative not present in the lyrics.

Film maker Kristoffer Borgli uses this conciet and with just a few lines sets the back story for this short tale of a man who likes dancing in a small Norwegian town. Funny, moving and touching.

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GRIND was made for Art gallery/-museum KIASMA and exhibition “Thank you for the music” 2012.

Dancehall Queen Style is a Jamaican dance fashion which became popular in the 1990s through music videos and The Grind show on MTV. The video is a playful take on the dancehall culture with its provocative costumes, suggestive poses, roles and blatant sexuality.

Read so hard librarians tryin’ ta FINE me­,
They can’t identify me,
Checked in with a pseudonym, so I guess you can say I’m Mark Twaining.
Read so hard, I’m not lazy.
Go on Goodreads, so much rated.
Fountainhead, on my just read, gave it four stars, and then changed it.
Read so hard, I’m literary.
Goosebumps series, TOO SCARY!

He said Shea can we get married at the Strand
His Friday Reads are bad so he can’t have my hand
You ball so hard, OK you’re bowling
But I read so hard, I’m JK Rowling

That shit cray
Ain’t it, A? What you readin’?
AQ: DeMontaigne.
You use a Kindle? I carry spines.
Supporting bookshops like a bra, Calvin Klein.

Nerdy boy, he’s so slow
Tuesday we started Foucault
He’s still stuck on the intro? He’s a no go.
It’s sad I had to kick him out my house though —
He Mispronounced an author – MARCEL PROUST

Don’t read in the dark
I highlight with markers
While laying in the park
And wearing Warby Parkers
Marriage Plot broke my heart
And it made me read Barthes
I special ordered a
A softcover not hard- HUAH?AHEHA?!

Read so hard libraries tryin’ ta fine me x 2

I am now marking my place
Don’t wanna crease on my page
Don’t let me forget this page
Don’t let me forget this page
I may forget where I left off so I’ll use this little post it…
I hope it doesn’t fall out, I hope that it stays stickie…

I am now marking my place
Don’t wanna crease on my page
Don’t let me forget this page
I got bookmarks at home
But I forgot one for the road
AQ: I got a bookmark I can loan
La Shea: Know how many bookmarks I own?

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On Sunday, October 23rd of last year Egyptian activist and blogger Aliaa Elmahdy posted a nude self portrait in protest of the repression of women within her society. While we may moan about Facebook censoring images with nipples her action has prompted death threats. Her action was undertaken solely by herself using a timer on her camera, and the photo published in her personal blog space – rather than a social media group where unsuspecting eyes could stumble upon it. A woman’s body is hers to show as she wants. Her blog carries an adult material warning so you would really feel the need to be offended if you clicked past that.

Her act is a gesture for personal freedom, Aliaa is on record saying “Women under Islam will always be objects to use at home. The (sexism) against women in Egypt is unreal, but I am not going anywhere and will battle it ’til the end. Many women wear the veil just to escape the harassment and be able to walk the streets. I hate how society labels gays and lesbians as abnormal people. Different is not abnormal!”.

What I find particularly galling is that liberal parties in Egypt have also criticised her action. It seems they are worried that her nudity will prove the hard line religious groups right. One side says you can’t do it while the opposition says you shouldn’t because it distracts from their message of liberation. It seems both sides believe that political power should come at the cost of personal freedom.

…which has this snippet “Women rights activist Nehad Abou el-Qomsan said conservatives ‘keep adding layers to cover up the women and deny their existence.’ But, she said, what Elmahdy did ‘is also rejected because posing nude is a form of body abuse’”. How not doing anything to your body but letting it be as it was when you were born constitutes abuse is beyond my deductive reasoning.

Bourdin, born in Paris in 1928, was one of the most radical and influential fashion photographers of the twentieth century. His unique blend of surreal and erotic imagery filled the pages of international magazines such as French Vogue during the 1970s and also became synonymous with the revolutionary advertising campaigns for Charles Jourdan. Rejecting the typical ‘product’ shot in favour of staging unsettling scenarios that hint at consumption, sex and desire, his photographs sought to shock and play on viewer’s curiosities.

I would say… if you have even the slightest interest in fashion, pop culture, the nude or iconoclastic photography – make the show, it’s on till the 10th of March. It will keep the colour burning in our retinas till the documentary finally makes the light of day.

Highlighting the photographic art of contributors from around the globe, Nude Closeup boldly explores the remarkable details of the human form and artistic vision in a way never done before. Selected from the best work on flickr, Model Mayhem, and other sources, this volume brings permanence and depth to the ever shifting sands of online photosharing. Ranging from subtle to edgy, this collection will expand your vision of what nude art photography is today.

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1976. Tom Robinson was yet to sing if you’re glad to be gay and Kenny Everett camped it up on TV without coming out. Being gay was criminal in Scotland and illegal under 21 in England. Queer bashing was common place (a worrying trend chav culture is bringing back).

He writes ”The killing of Georgie Parts I & II”. What’s so unusual about this song (to this day) is unlike Robinson’s carrion call using gay as activist, or disco’s glamour (think Sylvester equating gay with camp and frivolity), here is a song where the fact that the protagonist is homosexual is incidental. Where the gay is un-sensationalised.

The lyrics are not about Georgie being queer. His sexuality is mentioned only in relation to the effect on his life story, and the story told because he has been murdered. His death is unrelated to being gay, he is killed by muggers for money, not hatred.

Something we might expect from Orphans and Vandals today but not Rod Stewart in 1976.

It is a threnody to a lost friend, his homosexuality is merely a matter of fact, an everyday occurrence, far less unusual than death from violent robbery. Looking at our TV today, violent robbery predominates popular shows and yet a gay character still accrues column inches.

Quite remarkable that a straight man, a “lad” should write such lyrics and never ask for any gayness in it’s content to be made a song and dance over. It’s sometimes mistaken as an anthem against homophobia (the only mention is Georgie’s father). Mojo magazine asked him why he wrote a song with a gay theme, note rather than a song about a pal’s murder. “That was a true story about a gay friend of The Faces. He was especially close to me and Mac. But he was shot or knifed, I can’t remember which. That was a song I wrote totally on me own over the chord of open E.”

Mojo still obsess and asks about writing a song with gay content, Stewart said, “It’s probably because I was surrounded by gay people at that stage. I had a gay PR man, a gay manager. Everyone around me was gay. I don’t know whether that prompted me into it or not. I think it was a brave step, but it wasn’t a risk.”

Something in this song makes me tear up every time I hear it. On a side note it’s rather amusing and ironic that Rod himself appears to completely camp it up during the video.